On Saturday he ate...

I posted this picture in November of 2010 - that was quite awhile ago. I had no idea what kind of flower this was, but thought it was quite lovely. Today I found out!

I'll get back to the flower in a roundabout way.

 About two weeks ago, Galina and I found a big, fat caterpillar crossing our driveway (now this is not to be confused with the big, fat caterpillar we found a month ago on the rec path that we put in a tupperware house but quickly let go because I didn't want a dead caterpillar on my conscience) and since this guy was crawling away from a nice, big bush and towards the house - I figured I'd try my hand again at caterpillar metamorphosis.

We quickly confiscated Brian's mason jar. He wasn't happy when he got home. The day I put him into the jar he hung himself from the stick and literally lost his head. I was somewhat worried. His cocoon was not very cocoon-like. It didn't really cover his entire body and wasn't the nice little shape you normally see. Instead it looked like he had been caught in some sort of half-cocoon and tried to get out. I didn't have much hope, but, we waited patiently for two weeks, checking on him daily and this afternoon, as we were coming home from the playground we decided to check again, and... 

 Wa-lah!

 See his cocoon? It just didn't look "normal" to me. I guess I've been reading 'The Hungry Caterpillar' too much. I wanted an Eric Carle version :)

 I was so afraid it was going to hurt itself or I was going to hurt it or that it had been in the jar too long - so we only took a few shots (now I could kick myself since I let go of a fantastic opportunity) and didn't even wait for Brian to get home. Anyhow - he got out of the jar and flew up and over the house. Yay! We did it! Even though we didn't do anything! Yay! At least we didn't kill it! Yay!

 I love her.

 Johnny watched patiently from the stroller :)

 These last two pictures are from November 2010 too. Apparently our butterfly is a Gulf Fritillary Butterfly. And that flower? It's called a Passion Vine and this butterfly eats it exclusively. Guess what vine (weed, more like) is taking over one of the bushes in my front flowerbed? Yep...Pretty cool, pretty cool indeed.